


The Light of Day

by Winterstar



Series: Sins of the Day [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:32:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve suffers as Bucky cycles through PTSD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light of Day

In bitter supplication he surrenders to the needs, the needs of one so broken and fragmented he does know what he's doing. Steve whispers these words to himself, trying to convince himself of their truths. He barely hangs on through the ordeal of it, barely breaths as pain shreds him, rips him from the inside out. 

He knows what it feels like to die inside, to fall apart, flaked away like peeling paint in an old abandoned building. He's that building now as he allows the violation to happen, crumbling. The mortar of his bones disintegrates under the pounding of body against body. He won't fight and he knows it isn't an act of violence as much as it is an act of desperation. His body breaks in all the subtle ways and in the more obvious ways. 

In this way, he gives, he offers all that he is even though there are parts of him he no longer owns, parts of himself he's promise to another. As his body is abused and he scatters, like so many hopes and dreams of the young, he wishes only the best to his abuser, hopes that with this act of severe violence his friend will be spent, the horror and the trauma will burn out and he will be relieved of the haunting nightmares. 

He would trade Bucky's nightmares for his security and happiness any day, any time. He sacrifices his own mind and sanctity for Bucky's as he is ravaged by the beast residing inside Bucky's ruined soul. The brilliance of the fiery rage will burn out, and, not leave ash in its wake, but something hopeful. After all, a wild fire in the forest replenishes and nurtures the ground and earth.

He's left, beaten and bloodied, broken and violated. Alone. He crawls along the stream, a small creek really in the wilds of beyond New York, he thinks. He's not sure, he can't recall all the details since the whole trial began. He finds his way to a hollowed out log, as the rain patters down, through the drooping leaves, and his wounds are covered in mud and his body aches, inside. He curls into the wide open side of the log, using it for shelter. He tries to remember happier days, more positive times. He dwells upon the thought of his love, his husband, Tony. But then he avoids the comfort of his love because, in these acts, allowing himself to be compromised has been disloyal to all that he promised and vowed.

Night comes and when it does he hears the footsteps through the rain. His body shivers and it is not from the cold, but from shock. His body shouldn't go into shock, the serum should deal with his injuries, but his brain, his mind keeps replaying the episode again and again in his head, realizing that he betrayed his husband by allowing this violence against his body. He should have fought, he should have stopped him, but he couldn't. He could never do that to Bucky. 

Peering in to the night, he sees the glint of the metal arm. Fear constricts his throat and he fights to breathe. This isn't right, he shouldn't be afraid of his longtime friend, his brother in heart. Yet, he is, he can't deny the reality, the truth of his fears. He shuffles to get up, struggling against the pain. The wet leaves and moss hamper him and he slips and falls, cracking his chin on the gnarled roots of the long dead tree. 

Bucky's booted feet slam down in front of him, stopping his progress and Steve looks up through swollen, bruised eyes. Vulnerable and half naked, Steve poses little opposition. There's a knowledge in Bucky's face, an understanding of what he's done to Steve. There's horror and unrelenting guilt. Without a word, he leans down even as Steve shies away from him. He gathers Steve up in his arms, taking the load of his broken body, covering Steve with his tattered uniform, and a blanket. Steve doesn’t know where the blanket came from, but Bucky is tender and gentle as he wraps Steve fractured limbs, careful with his bloodied groin.

Cradled in Bucky's arms, a mixture of emotions batters him. He cannot settle and knows he should fight. He does nothing, he remembers a time when Bucky saved him. As a scrawny young man dedicated to doing the right thing even if it meant injury, he’d been in more than a few scrapes where his friend James Buchanan Barnes stepped in and saved him, brought him home, nursed him back to health. The feel of Bucky holding him is not unnatural, nor is it unfamiliar

But it is not blessed.

The feel, the touch has become, has transformed into the memory of pain and invasion and succumbing to the inevitable of trauma. He tries to remember that the trauma is not his, but Bucky’s, yet his mind cycles back, reminds him of the assault and he swallows back his bile and tastes the sour bite of repulsion.

He is sickened by his own body, by his own brain, by his own actions. 

He wants desperately to fight what Bucky offers now, because solace is not what he needs. He wants to forget and move on, but his body is too wrecked, too shattered to forget and erase the sins of the day.

The sins will hunt him as if he is their prey. He quakes in Bucky’s arms as he trudges through the wooded area. Steve’s brain refuses to focus, and he knows he’s more injured, more a shell of his former self than he wants to admit. 

The veil of stars falls upon them like a cursed beauty. He looks up at the lights and realizes they are far from civilization. He has no idea how they got here or what happened after the chance meeting in the coffee shop. He only recalls the pain, the justification of retribution. He allowed his body to be used, to be the object of punishment so that his friend might crawl out of the gloom of his tortured mind. 

He has no idea if it worked. All he knows is that he’s tired, and worn, and he has no special words to offer. All he knows is that Bucky Barnes is his saviour and his tormentor. All he knows is that he should try and escape, but his body fails him as if he’s that weak youth again. All he knows is that he’s split open his vows to Tony, and Tony should never forgive him.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, doesn’t know when they stop or when they start up again. He only sees snatches, feels the play of pain over his body as the nightmares torment Bucky again and Steve is the only one to blame, the only one there to accept the punishment for over a half century of imprisonment, a half century of a stolen life.

Steve welcomes the punishment; his body will eventually heal. 

His mind will never see the light of day again.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com) if you are interested.
> 
> This will be a series of vignettes in the lives of Steve, Tony, and Bucky as they confront what Bucky has done to Steve....if there is interest.


End file.
